Reflection - Recording Myself

As part of the Incredible Years Training I am doing they recommend recording yourself teach and reflect on what you notice. This week something on my agenda has been to record myself teaching. This is something I have not done before and I felt quite uncomfortable about the idea.

It has been a few weeks since I was told to do it and I have only got up the nerve to do it. I gave a school iPad to my 'star of the day' and their job was to record me.

This actually worked really well. I had to have a laugh when the child's finger was in the way of the lens for a good 30 seconds.

Anyway....here were my findings:

• I noticed lot of non-verbal hand gestures, even while talking I was using my finger on my lips to stop children talking. 
• I enunciate A LOT! I was surprise how clear my voice was and it was very interesting to listen to. 
• Proximal praise: I noticed that I was doing this here and there and it was cool to see the children respond. 
• I was not speaking loudly all of the time. I was dropping my voice to quieten those whisperers. 
• Lesson was clear and I happy how it was modeled. All of the children knew what they had to do. 
• Next step: For me it is praise, praise, PRAISE! I still don't feel that I am doing this enough. It is so easy to focus on those children who are whispering to a buddy or aren't looking at you or who are getting a bit wriggly on the mat. I need to spend more time noticing and praising those children that are doing the task. 

Term 2 Week 6

I have been noticing more behaviour problems lately and most of them are occuring in one area of the classroom. this is the cubby hole area. I am finding that lots of children are hiding out in there and this is where they can begin to bother other children and swap toys.

How my classroom was set up my back was to the cubby hole so therefore, I could not see what was going on in there. I believe that the children were completely aware of this. I have now moved my teaching station so that I can see the cubby area while I am teaching. I have also done this so that my mat space is smaller. This way the children have to sit up close to me and this is limiting some distractions.

So far this is working well. Only one child has attempted to hide in there since and I could spot him moving straight away.

Storytelling - Three Billy Goats Gruff

For this story again I continued with most of the process from the previous stories but I am still consolidating this new knowledge and adding more things as I go.  Three Billy Goats Gruff: New Things I tried:  Read Big Books and picture books that relate to the story. These followed the same storyline but the endings where different and sometimes the characters were different.   Deepening: Acted out the story in groups from a play.  Completed a picture dictionary.  Incorporated puppets and retell activities in Reading. Invention: Created out own character description of a troll. Picture Dictionary: Great for ESOL learners!  My findings:  The discussion after reading the different versions of story was great as the children could pick out all of the different things that did not match the version of the story that they were familiar with. At first I was worried that this would confuse them but instead it consolidated their knowledge of the story and it also provided them with more vocabulary to include in their own writing.  I also found that the detail of my writers retell of this story was fantastic! Most children included quotes from all three stories, including the play. Their writing had a clear sequence and I believe that the mapping process has helped this.